Climates of Opinion: La Niña and Permanent Change

Miller, Julia

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-76141-1_9

Julia Miller²

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Abstract

This chapter looks at the retention of climate optimism in the face of growing certainty about climate change. It examines how the memory of rain and lived experience of climate cycles can operate to challenge more abstract ideas about climate presented by climate scientists and in the media. It also relates how hope can be a powerful influence during prolonged dry periods. Further it demonstrates that climate optimism is part of the cultural construction of climate that now includes climate change. It shows that still in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the experience of weather events, such as drought-breaking La Niñas, can dampen fears about an adverse climate, reinforce a belief in natural cycles as responsible for climate change and impact the implementation of climate change mitigation policy.

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Notes

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47.
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48.
David Donnelly et al., Australia’s Farming Future.
49.
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50.
Greg Brown interviewed by Deb Anderson, as quoted in Deb Anderson, Endurance: Australian Stories of Drought, 100–101.
51.
Greg Brown interviewed by Deb Anderson, as quoted in Deb Anderson, Endurance: Australian Stories of Drought, 100.
52.
Deb Anderson, Endurance: Australian Stories of Drought, 101.
53.
Robert McClelland interviewed by Deb Anderson, as quoted in Deb Anderson, Endurance: Australian Stories of Drought, 93.
54.
Australian Bureau of Meteorology, “La Niña—Detailed Australian Analysis”, http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/lnlist/. Rainfall figures Marston Downs at nearby Sea Lake show 693.3 mm for 1973, 513.2 mm for 1974, and 381.4 mm for 1975. Australian Bureau of Meteorology, “Daily Rainfall—Sea Lake (Marston Downs)”, http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=136&p_display_type=dailyDataFile&p_startYear=1975&p_c=-1187174812&p_stn_num=077040.
55.
Bev Cook interviewed by Deb Anderson, as quoted in Deb Anderson, Endurance: Australian Stories of Drought, 88. Robert McClelland interviewed by Deb Anderson, as quoted in Deb Anderson, Endurance: Australian Stories of Drought, 89.
56.
In the Gulf Country and North West Queensland, previously drought-affected regions received record rainfall of 600 mm over a seven-day period from late January into early February. This caused widespread flooding as large areas received four times the February average. The Bureau of Meteorology noted that global warming was increasing the likelihood of heavy rainfall events and that rainfall prediction models were being recalibrated to take this into account. Australian Bureau of Meteorology, “Special Climate Statement 69—an extended period of heavy rainfall in tropical Queensland”, March 8, 2019, http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/statements/scs69.pdf.
57.
James Nason, “NQ Floods: Channel Country Flows a Rare Silver Lining”, Beef Central, February 13, 2019, https://www.beefcentral.com/news/nq-floods-channel-country-flows-a-rare-silver-lining/.

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Director Academic Affairs, CAPA The Global Education Network, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Julia Miller

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Miller, J. (2019). Climates of Opinion: La Niña and Permanent Change. In: La Niña and the Making of Climate Optimism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76141-1_9

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76141-1_9
Published: 13 July 2019
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-76140-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-76141-1
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